The moon shone brightly on the cloudless sky, covering the city in a green blanket. It was the Night of Abundance, the night when the World Seeds reached the peak of their mana emission. The swellers were magical beasts, and so they would be undoubtedly drawn to the Seed like a moth to the flame.
“Many of them are taller than the city wall,” Stanley said, floating higher to see better. “And it’s an impressively tall wall.”
People were swarming the streets, shouting and crying and ringing alarm bells. The fight was yet to break out, however. Fortram’s City Watch had bolstered all of their defenses, though they were clearly in trouble. The guard goletons spread out on the rotating wall would be mostly useless, and Stanley doubted that the scorpions and the crossbow-wielding guardsmen would be enough to make a dent on the giants’ numbers. The City Watch had ray guns too of course, but there were nowhere near enough of those; decay magic was rare, because the Sylven were really stingy about their magic and sold it only for extraordinary prices.
The rotating wall was the city’s greatest hope; Stanley was unsure whether the sweller giants would be able to climb over it. Breaking through would not be easy either. The giants could approach the wall only from the south and the north, while the eastern and western fronts presented a sheer drop off the mountain. Stanley knew however, that even with these advantages it would most likely be up to Fortram’s Player population to save the day. That was the reason why all of this was happening, after all.
Quests. They needed to do Quests. Stanley was glad that he had met Randel when he did; one more day in Yorg’s cage and his collar’s inactivity counter would have reached zero. One more day, and he would have been cursed with a Disability. Most people would have called it luck to escape such fate, but Stanley knew better.
The gods were stirring the pot once again.
“Someone kicked an anthill,” Stanley said, playing a few idle notes on his lute. “That’s what Fortram looks like.”
Although, perhaps the anthill metaphor wasn’t the most apt in this case. Now that Stanley thought about it, the natives of Nerilia might not even know what an ant was.
“Someone kicked a nest of swellers,” Stanley sang. “That’s the state of Fortram’s dwellers.”
“Please don’t start it again,” Randel groaned from below.
“I’m just preparing for battle,” Stanley said. He floated back to the rooftop where Randel was painting without a care in the world. Stanley almost envied his resolute laxness.
Randel’s building was one of the tallest buildings in the area, so it provided a nice view on their surroundings—about as nice as one could get without being able to fly like Stanley. Randel had set up a lantern right next to him, undeterred by the poor lighting conditions to paint on his large canvas. He had progressed quite a lot in the past hour, and Stanley could see now that he was painting a scene with a campfire and a blue-skinned figure who held a black dagger.
“You got it wrong,” Stanley chimed in, pointing at the blue-skinned figure. “That’s a Sylven, right? His horns should grow from the middle of his forehead and curve behind his ears, not the other way around.”
Although Stanley was aware that this could be just Randel’s artistic choice, his comment served more as a conversation starter. Randel was brooding a lot ever since he had left the World Seed, as if this sweller invasion came at the most inconvenient time for him. Knowing what had happened in Yorg’s hideout, Stanley wasn’t surprised.
“Her,” was Randel’s reply.
“Ohh!” Stanley said. “I admit I’ve never seen a Sylven woman. So they grow their horns differently? How curious.”
Stanley floated closer to the canvas, observing the picture more closely. So far it had been done with broad brush-strokes mostly, but Randel was now adding more and more detail. The black dagger could be Randel’s Soul Eater, which made Stanley curious like a cat. Why was a Sylven woman holding it?
“Is she someone you know, perhaps?” Stanley asked, noting the warm colors of the fire contrasting with the darkness of the background. The scene was going to look idyllic, he could tell. “Is she a friend? A lover? What’s her story?”
Randel paused at the last question, seemingly in thought.
“Her story is about freedom, I suppose,” he said. “It’s about cutting off old ties and finding a new role in a new world. But perhaps … perhaps I hope that the next chapter of her story is a fateful reunion. A reconciliation in the face of utmost peril.”
Randel turned back to his painting, but Stanley remained in place with his mouth open. He couldn’t see himself, but he was pretty damn sure that he looked starry-eyed in that very moment. Did Randel know about the Audience too? He had to, unless—perhaps he wasn’t actually aware of it, but had the right instincts? Either way, Stanley was fully convinced now.
“That was— That was beautiful!” Stanley said, fidgeting in excitement. He rooted around in the many pockets of his clothes before remembering that it had a built-in storage for small items. He quickly summoned what he had been searching for and held it out to Randel.
“Here, take this.”
“Hmm?” Randel said, taking the emblem with paint-stained fingers. “A twenty-sided die?”
Stanley cleared his throat, then bowed theatrically.
“It’s no simple die,” he said. “Randel, I hereby invite you to join the Covenant of Metagamers!”
Randel frowned, glancing down at the D20 and then back to Stanley.
“Thanks, but I don’t do this Player stuff. I just want to—”
“Oho! Stop right there,” Stanley cut in. “I know what you want.”
“You do?”
“Of course! You’ve just told me; you want to meet your lady friend from that painting. I believe that joining us Metagamers would help you achieve your goal.”
Randel narrowed his eyes, watching the D20 in his hand as if it was a can of worms about to be opened. Oh, the sadness! Stanley would have loved to say more to reassure Randel, but the tricky thing about the Metagamers was that one did not speak about the Metagamers. Saying too much would just break immersion for the Audience—and thus, gathering like-minded people who fit the Covenant was like finding needles in a haystack.
Although Stanley had not reconnected with Bear and Mantis yet, he was sure that they would approve Randel as their fourth member. Randel’s performance in Yorg’s cage had been brilliant, he had adapted to Stanley’s Domain quickly, and here he had just proven that he had a good eye for stories. Stanley wasn’t yet sure what Randel’s own story was, but he could see some of its building blocks. A cursed weapon and a lot of inner conflict. A chaotic-neutral disposition and a hidden, darker personality. They didn’t paint a pretty picture, but for the Metagamers that didn’t matter. Be them good or evil or lawful or chaotic, anyone with the right mindset would be welcome.
Besides, if Stanley could do it without risking his hide, he would gladly help steering Randel’s story toward safer waters.
“Trust me, you’d like our maxims,” Stanley added, winking at Randel conspiratorially. “It’s not about usual Player stuff.”
Randel sighed. “Go on.”
That was all the encouragement Stanley needed! He flew up and spun in the air, holding up a finger.
“One: think out of the box,” Stanley said, punctuating his sentence by turning upside-down and pretending to walk in the air.
“Two: game the system,” Stanley continued, flicking his collar’s projection on and off multiple times. He caught a hint of a smile on Randel’s lips at this.
“Three: make it entertaining,” Stanley finished, somersaulting in the air before doing a superhero-landing, a knee and a fist hitting the ground. He straightened up after a dramatic pause, looking at Randel expectantly.
“Well? What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Randel said, scratching his chin. “Was it really a coincidence that the two of us met?”
Stanley smiled; Randel wasn’t outright refusing to join!
“Coincidence is an elusive bird,” he said, summoning a coin with Bard’s Blessing and rolling it over his knuckles. “Perhaps there were five other cages, and in either of them you would have met a Player as great as Stanley the Bard! Is it coincidence? Is it fate? Would the gods need any of those when their deck is stacked? Perhaps there were five different outcomes for your adventure, and all of those would have felt like a coincidence.”
That was already more than Stanley should have said, but he believed that he owed this much to Randel. The black-haired man was silent for a while, and Stanley pretended to focus on flipping his coin between his fingers. Tricky, this one. When Randel spoke again, he did it with a roguish grin that suited him rather well.
“You’re smarter than you look, aren’t you?”
“Oi, don’t be rude,” Stanley retorted, then produced a handheld mirror from his inventory to check his hair in it. “I look sharp, don’t I? Just look at this handsome face! All the ladies are falling for how smart I look.”
“Yeah, right,” Randel said, and Stanley was proud to see that he was still smiling. “So, Metagamers. A Covenant where the system encourages you to game the system? I like the irony in it, I admit.”
“Does that mean you’ll join us?”
“I always try to think out of the box,” Randel said, holding up the D20. “I’m not opposed to gaming the system either, that’s for sure. And I guess while I’m at it, I could make it entertaining too.”
Although Stanley was facing Randel, he could instantly tell what the notification on Randel’s collar was.
> Congratulations, you’ve joined a Covenant!
> You’re now the member of Metagamers.
“Nice! Very nice!” Stanley said, clapping like a child at the sight of his birthday cake. “Now I have someone I can sing my songs to anytime.”
“Pester,” Randel said with a snort. “Pester anytime. That’s the word you were looking for.”
He picked up his color palette and turned back to his painting without any further questions about his new Covenant. That was odd, but perhaps he had anticipated that Stanley would speak about it anyway.
“Pester rhymes with jester,” Stanley said. “It’s—”
“—not a coincidence,” Randel finished the sentence. Oh, the burn! Worse yet, before Stanley could have defended his honor the door leading up to the rooftop cracked open and a small shape emerged. It was one of the Ratkin children, holding Nosy in his arms.
“Hello Tora,” Randel greeted him as he came sheepishly closer. “What’s up?”
“Uh … this place?” Tora asked, glancing warily at Stanley. “It’s up.”
“That’s the spirit!” Stanley said, laughing. “Hi Tora, I’m Stanley. I already like you.”
Tora shuffled uncomfortably for a moment, clutching the cat in his arms tighter. Nosy let out a disgruntled mewl and slipped out of his grasp, his flame-red fur like a torch in the moonlight.
“The children have gathered downstairs,” Tora said at last, turning to Randel. “There are riots on the streets.”
“Riots? Is that what all this shouting is?”
“Yes,” Tora said. “The City Watch closed off every gate. They do not let anyone through … to the inner rings.”
Unsurprising. Stanley flew higher up to take a look at the gate that led to the middle ring; the closest one was rotating slowly toward Randel’s building and there was indeed an angry mob running alongside it. There were also more and more people gathering along the perimeter of the wall, which meant that Randel’s home was getting surrounded by more and more frightened and desperate people. That was never a good sign, especially because people often blamed Reapers for calamities like this one. With good reason, Stanley supposed.
While Tora and Randel exchanged a few more words, Stanley observed the mob below a while longer. For some reason, they mostly steered clear from Randel’s building. Was it the distinctive paint-job along the walls and Randel’s reputation that did the trick? Or was it the Sylven man who stood guard in front of the entrance? A couple of insults were thrown his way, but he didn’t react to them in the slightest.
“Is there anything else?” Randel asked behind Stanley.
“I, uh … yes, there is,” Tora said. “It’s just … uh…”
Stanley turned back in surprise; the little Ratkin sounded even more nervous than before.
“Yes?” Randel softly asked. “What is it?”
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Tora fidgeted some more, and Stanley found it amusing how easy to read he was, in spite of his alien disposition.
“Am I not worthy of your symbol?” Tora asked, the words spilling out of him suddenly.
“My symbol?” Randel asked, taken aback.
“Tazuki and even Rei got one … they got it while playing with Nosy, they said, but I know it is your symbol. I saw it on Devi too!”
“Oh, that symbol!” Randel said. “I did it as an experiment and forgot about it. Don’t worry, it’s nothing special.”
“S-So it’s not true that you … you give it to those you like the most?”
“Definitely not,” Randel said with a laugh, “But hey, I like that idea! Would you like to have one? You should know that if you wear my mark, I’ll be able to tell when you’re nearby even without looking.”
“It’s, uh … really? I mean, yes. I think that’s okay.”
“Hmm. Alright, give me your hand,” Randel said, reaching out to Tora. “The mark will look like whatever my black weapon looks like. Right now it’s a dagger, but I can shape it into something else. What would you like it to be?”
“The dagger … is good. Everyone has the dagger.”
“Sure thing! Then, here we go,” Randel said. He pressed his index finger to Tora’s palm, which wasn’t covered in fur like the rest of the Ratkin’s arm. A small black shape appeared at once on Tora’s pale skin, looking much like a tattoo.
“It didn’t hurt,” Tora mumbled, opening and closing his hand.
“Of course it didn’t,” Randel said. “Listen, if for whatever reason you don’t want this mark anymore, just tell me, alright? I can take it off anytime.”
“Y-You can?” Tora asked, his whiskers twitching wildly.
“Sure I can. If the marks were permanent, I wouldn’t have marked the others without their consent.”
“I … see,” Tora said, watching his own tattoo happily.
Stanley floated up high once again, leaving Randel to his little cult-building exercise. Having followers – or minions – could have a lot of potential, though Stanley was afraid how they would contribute to Randel’s overarching story. Minions were usually expendable bodies waiting to be sacrificed to further the plot.
“We never learn until we try,” Stanley said, his tone wry. “No wonder why, when the limit is the sky.”
The battle on the outmost wall began in the earnest. Stanley could hear the chittering sound of the sweller giants over the noise—even from this distance. Brief, colorful flashes lit up the night as the City Watch fired at them, and Stanley could see that he had underestimated their firepower. Not only did they have lots more ray guns than he had supposed, but they held other tricks in their hats too. They were firing series of red-hot energy bullets from some ivory rifles, and they had also unleashed clouds of sickly-green gas that actually gave the giants a pause.
The rays of decay, on the other hand, were absolutely useless. The sweller giants either did not age with time, or their bodies were too large to be affected. Probably the former. Stanley remembered meeting a man who claimed to had been hit by a decay-ray; his arm had shriveled and became mummified, but the rest of his body had remained intact. The sweller giants didn’t suffer from partially dead body parts, from what Stanley could see at this distance.
“The battle has begun,” Stanley called out to Randel. “You still don’t want to join a fight?”
“And do what, Stanley? Stab the giants with a tiny dagger?”
He was painting his picture once again. Because of the city’s rotation the rooftop had been plunged into the shadow of the second wall, but Tora placed a second lantern next to Randel to watch him paint while petting Nosy.
“You’ll miss out on all the sweet XP,” Stanley said, though he knew Randel wasn’t going to be convinced by that. Sometimes, however, talking was the best way to make a story take its shape.
“Too bad,” Randel said without looking up.
“Young Players these days,” Stanley said with a sigh, shaking his head reproachfully. “Don’t you want to be part of an epic battle? Take the front lines and show the citizens that you’re protecting them?”
“I’m not convinced that the wall is where I need to be right now,” Randel said. “Battles can be fought on multiple fronts.”
There it was! Stated a bit too bluntly to Stanley’s liking, but he could forgive that much to the newest member of the Metagamers.
“Fine,” Stanley said. “Just to let you know, I’d join the fight in a heartbeat if the injuries I got from Roach weren’t so severe. He had almost cut me in half, can you believe that? I would have trouble wrestling with the giants like this.”
Stanley’s wounds were mostly healed by now actually, he just hadn’t removed the bloody bandages yet. He was afraid that if he played the tough guy his injuries would leave some ugly scarring across his chest.
“I understand,” Randel said. “It’s a blessing that at least your vocal cords aren’t hurt.”
“Exactly,” Stanley said, nodding enthusiastically. “I’ll put my honeyed voice to good use and tell you if I see anything noteworthy on the battlefield!”
That said, Stanley flew higher up still and turned his attention back to the siege. More and more giants were grabbing onto the wall all around the perimeter, using their enormous segmented legs to reach over and hold onto the rotating stone structure from the other side. Although they were tough enough to weather the City Watch’s assault and hold onto the wall, it didn’t seem like they were capable of pulling themselves over the structure. Their bodies were too bulky and their grotesque spider-legs were too weak to pull their weight up.
“Are they attempting to stop the city’s rotation?” Stanley mused out loud as more and more sweller giants grabbed the wall. The giants that were too small to reach the battlement just grabbed other giants who did. Chains of sweller giants were slowly dragged sideways by the rotation of the city, dangling them off the cliffside on the western and eastern fronts. It would have looked funny, if the giants weren’t doing this so purposefully. They already looked terrific in the pale moonlight, and this undaunted behavior just made it worse.
“I’m not good at maths, but I don’t think so,” Randel said from below. “The World Seed is already moving thousands of buildings around itself. A few more giants wouldn’t make a dent.”
“Well, it’s not just a few…” Stanley trailed off as a sudden flash caught his attention. “Reinforcements!”
Some Players were joining the fight, he could see it now. A man with fiery wings swooped in, his hands pouring fire on one of the giants as he flew by. There was a second flash and this time Stanley actually saw a woman on the battlement lop off an entire sweller-leg with a single strike of her glowing, purple-red sword. And—
“Is that a Scarlet Hand?” Stanley exclaimed, spotting a man who stood on a translucent disc in the air, gliding toward the giants. Even from this distance Stanley could see the trademark trait of Emperor Tarumon’s elite; bare arms displaying scarlet-colored skin from fingers to elbow. The man was alone, but if legends were true a single Scarlet Hand would be enough to wipe these giants out completely.
“I have to see this from up close,” Stanley said. He slung his lute over his shoulder and waved to Randel and Tora. “I’ll be right back!”
Stanley flew after the Scarlet Hand with moderate speed, careful about the headwind. The Scarlet Hand reached the giants within seconds, watching them calmly from atop his disc. He was quite a sight; shaved head, muscular body, straight-back posture, and a sleeveless armor made from some kind of dark red metal. Most Players tended to look impressive after a couple of years on Nerilia, but Scarlet Hands always took it to the next level.
“Oi,” Stanley shouted over the noise of the battle, stopping a safe distance away from the man. “It’s dangerous out here, my friend. Do you need a hand?”
The Scarlet Hand moved suddenly; he lifted his hand up above his head, then brought it down swiftly. Stanley heard a loud crunch as one of the giants holding onto the wall sagged, its legs breaking as an enormous hand-print appeared on the top of the monster’s bulky body. Scary! The Scarlet Hand ignored Stanley quite pointedly, flying over the wall and moving his hand again, swatting away another giant sweller. He then made a grabbing motion at yet another giant and crushed its body like an overripe fruit.
Then the giants began to scream all at once.
Stanley winced at the sharp, ear-piercing sound and closed his eyes as a blast of magic washed over him. He recovered just in time to see the Scarlet Hand’s floating disc shatter apart and causing the Scarlet Hand to fall. The giants’ screaming ceased when the Scarlet Hand plummeted into their midst, disappearing outside the wall.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Stanley said. “He didn’t need my help, after all.”
The Scarlet Hand didn’t resurface, so Stanley just floated in the air and let the chaos wash over him.
The air smelled of smoke and burnt flesh. Alien chitters mixed with the screams of men. Shouting guards and whirring goletons hacked at spider-limbs on the top of the wall, painfully inefficient. And outside? An army of giants. Hundreds of deformed, bloated, swelling bodies, their shapes both bizarre and ominous in the green moonlight. Impossible creatures that looked like a result of a bad dream—yet here they were, real and tangible, shaking the ground with the fall of their footsteps.
And it wasn’t only the giants, Stanley suddenly noticed. Small swellers, like a nest of spiders, were climbing out of the maws of the swellers giants. They skittered all over the giants’ bodies, running along the gigantic limbs that were holding onto the wall. The limbs that arched over the wall, holding onto it from the inside. Swarms of small creatures climbed across, dropping down to the ground on the other side—and then their hunt began.
Stanley looked at the top of the wall where most of the guards were positioned at, then turned toward the hundreds of swellers storming the nearest houses. It was time to move, he decided. There was no way he alone could stop this many little monsters, but perhaps the casualties wouldn’t be too severe even without his intervention. Swellers were weak, so they might not even be able to get through closed doors and windows.
Stanley swooped down to the streets, grabbing a child who had thought it would be a good idea to watch the battle from up close. His Flight was seriously overburdened by the extra weight, but carrying the child was manageable; with Mana Engine, he was be able to handle the increased cost. He even flicked a Bard’s Blessing at a woman who was running for her life with two swellers in her heels. The woman saw the golden coin flying at her head and instinctively ducked, neatly dodging a sweller that jumped for her head at the same time.
A few streets later Stanley dropped the screaming child and flew back up, heading toward Randel’s building. He straightened his rumpled clothes when he arrived, though only Tora bothered to look up at him. Randel was too busy painting his picture, which now looked considerably more detailed than before. It was its own kind of magic, Stanley supposed.
“Things are getting a tad hairy out there,” he told Randel, landing beside him to recover his mana. “The smaller swellers have climbed over the wall.”
“Yes, they are really good at climbing,” Randel said, adding some shadows to the background. “Did you know that there’s a tribe of Thardos that lived together with swellers in the past? Tora has always lived in this city so he couldn’t tell me much about his people, but I have seen reliefs that depicted Thardos and swellers together. They tamed those monsters, much like we tame dogs.”
“That’s nice,” Stanley said. “How are you planning to tame them?”
“I don’t,” Randel said. “It’s just a fun fact.”
“Oof. Pal, the next time you call me annoying, please remember this moment.”
Stanley turned to Tora, who was clutching his large ears with a pained expression. Nosy looked equally disturbed, so Stanley guessed it wasn’t Randel’s horrible tales that pained the little Ratkin.
“What happened, Tora?”
Tora jerked, surprised that Stanley was addressing him.
“That loud scream,” he said. “It hurt my ears.”
“Ah,” Stanley said. “You might want to get something to stuff your ears with, because more screams like that are on the way.”
The shouting on the streets was getting louder. Stanley went to the edge of the roof, watching a new surge of people arriving to the second wall like the waves of the ocean crashing ashore. News of the roaming swellers were spreading like wildfire, and while Stanley was sure that many had locked themselves up in their homes, there were a lot of people who decided that moving further into the city was the safer move.
Be them men or women, young or elderly, most of them held some kind of weapon. Pieces of iron used as bats were commonplace for those who couldn’t afford proper swords or other, magical means to arm themselves. Gauntlets and other pieces of golemancy-controlled armors were quite common, and Stanley could see a few bone equipment too. Some people had also brought their skeletal servant with them, though those didn’t seem to fare too well in the crowd. Necromancy wasn’t easy, and those who could animate sturdier skeletons typically didn’t live in the lower ring.
“We should go out and help them,” Stanley said. He could see in the distance that more swellers were dropping down into the city.
“Nah,” Randel said without looking up. “It’s not necessary yet.”
It seemed pretty necessary to Stanley, though. The escaping citizens didn’t have any formation or discipline; they would suffer casualties against the swellers, and they would trample each other down in an attempt to escape.
“Wasn’t this what you were waiting for, Randel?” Stanley probed further. “The fight comes to your doorstep. Do you really need to hear the dying screams of people before you get down there?”
Frustratingly, Randel just shrugged. The refusal wasn’t unexpected, but it annoyed Stanley nevertheless. He was a Player who played the support role; he was useless if he had no one to aid. He couldn’t see which angle Randel was playing at here, and that made him wonder if there was any angle at all. Would it be better if he just found another Player to support? Perhaps Stanley was supposed to find the Sylven woman from the painting, fighting somewhere down in this chaos. Perhaps it would be his role to learn the other side of the story from the woman, and then reconnect her with Randel after the fight. That would make a fun story too.
“Listen, Randel,” Stanley said. “I’ll—”
The words died on his lips as purple light erupted from the ground a few city blocks away. A pillar of light, shooting toward the sky. Stanley flew up to get a better view, his eyes widening when he saw that an entire multi-storey building had been obliterated. The beam melted stone with a loud whooshing sound, the heat around it so intense that the surrounding buildings caught fire. Although the laser beam disappeared a couple of moments later, the damage was already done; dozens of people were most likely dead, and many more injured.
Something moved under the broken ground right then, and a low groan reverberated across the lower ring of Fortram. Stanley could only imagine the confusion of the citizens down there, their shock turning into panic as an enormous shape slithered out of the hole. Slimy gray skin covered a sinuous, ringed body that squashed everything and everyone under its ridiculous size. Just like that, another three buildings disappeared. Dust and smoke and rubble flew everywhere. The creature that emerged from the destruction split its head open, peeling it apart like a blooming flower to reveal a gaping maw with a large tube in the middle. The gigantic worm – because that was what the creature looked like – twisted its body, slowly but deliberately, as if it was looking around. After a frightening second of looking in Stanley’s direction, it turned toward the second wall of the city. Lavender light gathered slowly in its orifice—and that was when Stanley realized that it was going to shoot another laser beam.
“See?” Randel asked, walking closer with Nosy in his arms. “Now it’s time for us to step in.”
The giant worm fired the laser beam a second later, but its head was aimed too low; the beam carved a path of destruction through the buildings between the worm and the wall, killing everyone who had been in the way. The worm then tilted its head to hit the wall of the middle ring, melting the stone structure—but not being strong enough to punch right through. The gigantic monster kept firing at one spot, but because of the wall’s rotation all it achieved was an increasingly long horizontal gorge.
“Stanley, I need your help,” Randel said. “Could you come down for a second?”
Stanley jolted out of his stupor. He needed to think. How to stop a thing like that? What kind of story was this about? It seemed like the gods were willing to cripple – or even completely destroy – this entire city. Almost all of the City Watch was on the outer wall, and most the Players had gone there too. They would not be able to stop this giant worm in time.
“Stanley?”
“Sure, mate,” Stanley said, turning around to land beside Randel. “Do you have a plan?”
Randel wore a rather calm expression, watching the worm and stroking his cat’s red fur. There was something in his green eyes, a cold and unperturbed hardness telling Stanley that Randel had already seen worse and the worm was nothing to worry about.
Then all of a sudden the stoic look was gone, and Randel’s expression became almost mischievous as he turned to Stanley.
“I’m not a man of many plans, but I do have one this time,” Randel said, holding out Nosy. “I need you to take this distinguished fellow and fly out of the city with him, to hover above the invading giants.”
Stanley had expected to support Randel with his Rhyming Reality, but … well, he didn’t have any good ideas; following Randel’s plan was as good as any. He took Nosy in his arms, surprised by how warm his fur was. The cat lazily yawned, apparently enjoying all the attention he was getting.
“Alright,” Stanley said. “I’ll fly out and stop above the giant swellers. What do I do then?”
“Then? Nothing. That’s the entire plan,” Randel said, flipping Soul Eater over in his hand. “Hold Nosy there as long as you can, and I promise that I’ll make it entertaining.”
Before Stanley had the chance to reply, Randel threw his dagger and teleported onto the next building, running across the roof in the direction of the giant worm.
“This is nonsense,” Stanley said, though he had to admit that he felt excited about finding out what Randel was planning to do. He petted Nosy for a while, letting the anticipation wash over him. It felt so odd to be in a position where someone else was dictating the pace of his story. Had Stanley gotten too used to be the one who pulled the strings? This was Yorg’s cage once again, with Randel butting in to turn the steering wheel in directions that Stanley wasn’t even aware of.
“Come on Nosy,” Stanley said, “we are leaving.”
Hoping that the cat wasn’t afraid of heights, Stanley shot up to the sky.